The seed to sale value chain starts with plants in the ground and many observers and analysts track this license to gauge how the supply and price of cannabis will move. Plant count and canopy size are still oft quoted metrics for the cultivation part of the supply chain. Licenses declined slightly since last quarter due to ongoing moratoriums and oversupply in some markets.
Key Points
- 747 cultivation licenses were issued in Q2 up from 456 in Q1
- Michigan issued 336 (45%) in the second quarter
- California issued 153 new cultivation licenses with New Mexico trailing at 72
- There are 18,164 active cultivation licenses nationwide down from 18,218 at the end of Q1
The graph below shows new cultivation license issuance in 2025. The numbers are consistent except for April when Michigan cranked out 210. Oklahoma’s cultivation renewals are excluded from these numbers.
Here is the Midyear 2025 Cultivation Leaderboard for new licenses:
For the first six months of the year the issuing states are a mix of mature, growing and new markets with Michigan well entrenched in first place.
And here’s the top 10 states in terms of total active cultivation licenses:
California is still top of the nation but Michigan is a strong and growing number two in the market.
Conclusion
While Michigan led the first six months of the year, California has a commanding lead in overall licenses. One interesting footnote for California is that the number of large licenses has increased greatly – in February 63 had been granted and now that number is 90 plus 2 with“limited operations”. These large licenses take the place of many smaller ones – so the growth of licenses there may be muted in the future.
Author
Ed Keating is a co-founder of Cannabiz Media and oversees the company’s data research and government relations efforts. He has spent his career working with and advising information companies in the compliance space. Ed has managed product, marketing, and sales while overseeing complex multijurisdictional product lines in the securities, corporate, UCC, safety, environmental, and human resource markets.
At Cannabiz Media, Ed enjoys the challenge of working with regulators across the globe as he and his team gather corporate, financial, and license information to track the people, products, and businesses in the cannabis economy.
Ed graduated from Hamilton College and received his MBA from theKellogg School at Northwestern University.
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